Metalocalypse’s Dethklok is both a real and animated super-shredder heavy metal band. Kinda like Gorillaz, but with more head-banging, blood, guts and mayhem. What I love is that Brendan Small first created a show around the world’s most successful (fictional) black metal band, then created a real live band around it, and invariably reaped the fame of the fictional animated one. Does that make any sense? I guess usually movies/things get big in real life, then get animated, not vice versa….

For all you post-modern ironic lovers of the power of technology to rearrange, interrupt and recontextualize….wait, let me start over. This video is HI-larious. Maybe it’s because I have been in rooms full of stinky dudes agape at footage of Slash’s classic 1992 Tokyo concert, going, “My god! This solo is a veritable treasure trove of repeating pentatonic licks! Slash is God! We are not worthy!” (Sorta.) Well, Mr. StSanders has thoroughly confounded legions of shred-lovers. He “voices over” in near perfect timing clunker-rific dissonent solos that are the worst you have ever heard over all my favorite obnoxious guitar-heroes, including, but not limited to, The Satch-master, Steve Vai, Clapton, and others.

I came across this John Galliano couture collection from 2006 and couldn’t help but laugh. I’ve been thinking about the great question of war & peace ever since hearing snippets from a rare house debate on the subject on NPR the other day. I don’t really have any answers on the state of the nation….apart from presenting Galliano’s bedraggled mud-slang revolutionary rockers doused in oil make-up, flip-flops, Galliano branded life vests (?), Michael Jackson-inspired spike shoulder pads and fake beards. Is Galliano lampooning the ridiculously luxe couture high-fashion world? Or our mythological idealizations of fighting desperados? Perhaps Mad Max is upon us.

Actress and film-maker Isabella Rossellini (daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini) has a series of campy K-9 bio class instructional videos titled “Green Porno” (though it’s far from being pornographic, really) featuring her acting out the copulations of various insects, crustaceans, and other assorted creatures that you don’t normally think about doing the horizontal tango. “In each one, Rossellini matter-of-factly describes, then demonstrates using extremely low-budget special effects, how – if she were, say, a dragonfly, or a mantis, or a starfish – she would copulate and reproduce with her animal mate. In the film beginning ‘If I were a snail…’, for instance, Rossellini explains: ‘I can withdraw my entire body into my shell, where I can hide my vagina and my penis,’ then gleefully whispers to the camera, ‘I have both!’ and retreats into her giant snail shell made of cardboard.” Read more about her series at Frieze Magazine.

Hey guys- we haven’t run a contest in a while because we were holding out for something that would really benefit our readers! Well, here’s a contest that will put cold, hard cash in your pockets as well as further your creative careers. We’re offering the opportunity to win $1000.45, as well as be featured in a month-long exhibition at Synchronicity Gallery here in Los Angeles. The event will be curated and promoted by yours truly and the directors there. Synchronicity is quickly becoming a go-to gallery for discovering & breaking emerging artists! We thought this would be a great opportunity to give some recognition to our readers… See below for full rules and how to enter, and good luck!

Art “Works Every Time” Design Competition!

Beautiful/Decay and Colt 45 present: Art “Work Every Time” Design Competition! We want you to interpret Colt 45’s logo and catch phrase “Works Every Time.”

What’s in it for you? The winnings are as smooth as a tall boy of Colt 45:

Contest Winner (Top Player):
- $1,000.45 in cash! *
-Your design featured on a limited edition T-shirt, distributed worldwide!
-Your submission & personal artwork featured in a month-long exhibition, Art “Works Every Time” at the Los Angeles based Synchronicity Gallery, Los Angeles. The directors of the gallery will be curating the exhibition together with Beautiful/Decay. (With all that cash and fame, you just might become as debonair a player as Billy Dee Williams himself.)

Runners Up (Close, But No Cigar!):
- Winning submission & personal artwork displayed in the Art “Works Every Time” exhibition.

Deadline:
April 15th, 2010, 6pm EST

Here’s How To Enter:
Visit beautifuldecay.com/colt45 for full rules & regulations. Eligibility details after the jump!

*California residents are invited to enter but, due to state alcohol control restrictions, California residents will not be eligible to receive any cash prize or item of value.

Colt 45 and all related logos are trademarks of G. Heileman Brewing Co. Sponsor: G. Heileman Brewing Co. Milwaukee, WI.

From what I can tell, Pierre Bolide likes a few things: Space. Raging vein mutant muscles. And imaginary feuds with Chuck Norris. The only way I can describe these are like fan club illustrations of a long lost Nintendo video game that totally ruled and I played so much I saw the shapes on the back of my eyelids when I went to sleep at night, or some totally awesome TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) spin-off series based on one of  Shredder’s obscure, but totally awesome minions. Found on B/D’s very own Creative Pic Pool!

Chicago artist Nick Cave is currently showing at the Fowler Museum. We got a chance to interview him last year. Nick transforms found objects into what he calls “Soundsuits”.  These suits are not just sculptural works but meant to be worn.  Imagine wearing one of these to the next costume party you attend? Performers inside the suits emit noises, hence the title “Soundsuits”.  The above image reminds me of our BD shirt: Explosion.  Apparently Cave, an Alvin-Ailey trained dancer, plans to eventually have a world-traveling show with 90 Soundsuit-creatures.